Thursday, November 13, 2008

We were on the road most of the day. So while we listened to KiDS Place LiVE the whole time, I didn't take lots of notes.

Animal Farm:Sounded good. Kenny only said XMKiDS a couple of times. Some nice skits with the animals. A kids called in asking for Kenny to play Bon Jovi(?), but then asked for "My Green Kite" by Peter Himmelman. Chloe called in to do math problems with Kenny.

I didn't notice if Shushybybe came on or not.

Absolutely Mindy:Needless to say, we were so sad not to hear more from Mindy, Coliflordia and the rest of the stuff that makes the show so entertaining for us. The boat has been rocked and we are going to hope that the dust settles in a way that will give us back the show in the form that we know and love or in a new form that we will also love. Chloe called Mindy and told her that she's her BFF.

While Mindy may have confused a few kids' requests today, I have to say that her memory of kids, their names, their likes and dislikes, etc. amazed me from day 1. We actually met Mindy before we were XM subscribers; we went to a Rumpus Room show in Nov 2006 to hear ScribbleMonster. We talked to Mindy for about 10 minutes altogether. We next saw her in NC at the Traveling Roadshow in May 2007. She remembered my girls' names! How in the world she did that, I have no idea. Hearing XMKiDS play in the background at the roadshow, I decided it was a GOOD thing. We heard Danny Adlerman and more great kids' artists on the air, and I went home and subscribed.

Anyway, since then, every time we have seen Mindy, she greets all the kids she sees by name, knows when and where she has seen them before etc. She's amazing!

Robbie Schaefer in a Real Tall Tree:Again, we didn't hear as much of Robbie as we love to hear, but I'm going to do what I can to keep the shows alive -- stick around and keep asking them to do what we love for them to do. Chloe talked to Robbie about the giant peach water tower we were about to pass.

Here on the blog:I'm happy to say that the discussion in the comments has stayed informative and civil. People are able to express their opinions and understand that we are all entitled to our own opinions. Again, I'm not going to just give KPL a week. I'm going to stick around and keep expressing my opinion. The Rumpus Room concerts alone are a reason to keep my XM. If the programming goes to too much couch potato (yes, I admit, I'm the one that asked for the iCarly song, but I just can't help it) and not enough interviews, talk, and sharing, then we will likely listen less than we do now. There's only so many times I can listen to the Madagascar song!

4 comments:

I felt sorry for Mindy today :( it sounded like the stress was getting to her a little too much. I miss the completely out of left field sort of humor Mindy has.

I agree that they seem to be shortening up the talk, which might not be a good thing for this station. I know the XM audience is used to being able to interact with the DJs.

I've been listening to this station about since 03 or so, and it has overall gotten a lot less repetitive than it used to be. I don't want it to go back to that. It did used to be more music and less talk, and more repetition.

Obake, I too worried about the pressure the DJs are under. I imagine it is hard for them to keep their upbeat attitudes while taking the heat for the merger of the two channels. Hindsight and all that, but I wish they had put up a buffer -- so when an irate call comes in they can quickly transfer to customer service.

It is WAY to early to know what will happen. Yes, there was less talk yesterday, but it could be for any number of reasons. For instance, you may have heard reference to this on the air, but Laurie Berkner will be recording in the Rumpus Room today, so I suspect there will be little or no live talk from Mindy today, but for a reason that has nothing to do with the backlash, but with Laurie's schedule.

I agree. More talk, less repetition. Earlier this year, the 13under13 was stagnant, and now things move a little bit more (I'd like for even more movement, really).

I got an email from Robbie Schaefer that encouraged me a lot, but also had a sorta "we'll do what we can" undertone.

I wonder if these angry preschool moms realize that they're basically asking these three great hosts to be fired right before Christmas? I'd feel way worse for them personally than for the loss of this great radio station. Life goes on without radio, but life out of a job before Christmas stinks :(

Is it so aweful that I want to hear less talk and more music? I'm alright with DJ's. I always tuned into some of my favorite music stations to listen to the DJ's they have (Madison on Alt Nation comes to mind) But even she stradles the line of introducing songs, telling a little bit about something going on, maybe a tad of music news and then it's LOTS of songs.

Maybe it's because I'm coming in on this station after the merger/switch in line-ups, but when I'm driving with my little ones in the car for about 20-30 minutes, we really want to hear music. I'm not interested in some made-up land or world if supposed to be a music channel.

When is the Laurie Berkner Live thing supposed to air? Kids Stuff made the month of September Septem-Berkner and played her music to support the new album. I haven't heard "Mouse in my toolbox" once since.*sigh* guess it's too "kiddy"....

It seems they're getting the kinks out on the channel tho. I think it's going to be more of a relaunch/reboot to satisfy the most people.

Disclaimer

We are a regular family who are fans of KiDS Place LiVE (was XMKiDS). We have no business or family relation to XM, except that according to my daughter, she and Mindy are BFFs.
XM/Sirius Satellite Radio is in No Way Responsible for the Content Within This Fan Site